Samuel Smith delivered his most emotional and most critical demand for money from the City Council on Monday night, but he walked away no richer for the effort.
The Shank Street resident has attended every City Council meeting since Feb. 14 in his quest for a refund for 18 years’ worth of city sanitation fees on his monthly water bill. Because he lives just outside the city, Smith does not get his garbage picked up by the city Public Works Department, and he should not have been charged for that service.
Smith received $757 to cover three years of sanitation charges. Because of the statute of limitations on claims against the city, the City Council has followed City Attorney John Zollicoffer’s advice and refused to pay Smith $2,238 more to cover the remaining 15 years. (Zollicoffer has acknowledged that the statute of limitations is two years, but the city’s policy of paying three years of claims was a good-faith mistake. Paying Smith for more than three years, the city attorney has said, would open the city to endless old claims.)
The council went a step further March 21 and forgave $390 in late fees on Smith’s water account. That cut the amount he owed the city to about $9 and alleviated the threat of having his water disconnected. Because he blames the late fees on the years of overcharges, Smith said Monday night that the $390 does not change what the city owes him.
“I’m still unsatisfied,” Smith said.
Appearing with three of his children, Smith pleaded with the council to do the right thing, and he criticized the council for hiding behind a legal technicality with the statute of limitations.
If the statute was so clear, Smith asked, why did the council even vote on a previous motion from Mary Emma Evans to give him the full amount he paid the city in sanitation charges over 18 years?
Smith said council members like to talk about fighting crime and helping children, but they are hurting his children. Pointing to one of his sons, Smith said the boy wants to be a doctor when he grows up. What if he didn’t operate on a council member, Smith said, because some statute had expired?
“You aren’t just taking from me,” he said. “You’re taking from my family.”
He said his children are top students at Pinkston Street Elementary School and Henderson Middle School, and he brought their pink report cards as proof. Unlike some families, Smith said, he and his wife are raising their children right; they’re not getting into trouble or committing crimes.
“He could be robbing your house. Maybe he could shoot one of your kids,” Smith said of a son who’s in college. “They’re not doing that.”
Smith became more worked up as he talked about his family members and the mistreatment they have suffered at the hands of city officials.
“You want to say the city’s right? The city’s not right,” Smith said. He asked who in the city has lost a job over the mistake of improperly billing him for so many years, despite his repeated questioning of his bills.
He said his case has become a joke for some at the council meetings, but the situation is no laughing matter.
“You want to stop the crime rate? You want him on the street for drugs? You want him on the street for drugs? You want her walking around as a crack head, using drugs?” Smith shouted, pointing to each of hid children in turn. “You say you want to stop the crime rate. How you going to stop it?”
He said the city’s actions are not justified. “I don’t care if I’m on the agenda or not on the agenda, I will be here every night.”
Smith said he doesn’t want donations to make up the money the city took. He wants the city to do the right thing and repay him, or he wants the issue to rest on council members’ consciences.
With the rising prices for gas and groceries, “I guess I’m supposed to go rob y’all’s houses while y’all are sitting up here,” Smith said. “Then you’ll be happy. ‘Oh, we got another black man out here robbing houses to take care of his family.’ ”
He said anything the council can vote on, it can change.
That’s what Evans tried to do after Smith spoke for nearly 20 minutes. “Is there any way we can rethink Mr. Smith’s situation?” she asked.
“I can’t,” Ranger Wilkerson said, “not after getting a thrashing like that.”
Evans said she has done all she can to get Smith his money, and she urged her colleagues to look beyond any insults. “Don’t y’all know anything about pain? Can’t you feel it?”
Evans has repeatedly called for the council to ignore the statute of limitations and pay Smith every penny. She has had the support of Mayor Clem Seifert, who has said that if he had a vote, he would vote to pay Smith.
Still, Seifert seemed as weary of the debate as anyone: “I don’t want to see this issue being voted on every single week.”
He expressed frustration during the council’s discussions Monday night that no one knew exactly how much Smith overpaid in 18 years or how much the city refunded him. Smith signed up to speak and was on the agenda, and the mayor said city staff should have been prepared with the financial details. “It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to realize what he was asking for.”
Elissa Yount has made the only suggestion for an alternative. She wants to let Smith pay city water rates instead of county rates for as long as it takes to make up his loss.
Finance Director Traig Neal initially said that would be impossible because special rates aren’t allowed under the revenue bonds the city sold to finance water projects. Neal was not at Monday’s meeting, however, and lost in the excitement over Smith’s tirade was the fact that the finance director has since said he doesn’t think the underwriters would have a problem with a discounted rate for Smith. What stopped the council from cutting Smith a break on rates at past meetings was the suspicion that such an action would violate the statute of limitations as surely as paying him cash.
Hoping to settle the rate question, Yount made a motion for Neal to obtain a written statement from the bond underwriters. Wilkerson seconded the motion. The council unanimously passed the motion, which carries no promise of city action after Neal gets his answer.
Yount said she has a tough time accepting that the city spent $400,000 last fiscal year without budgeting for it, “yet this man is only asking for what we know we owe him,” and the city can’t do anything.
Evans made a motion to reconsider the council’s earlier decision and pay Smith all of the money owed him, but the motion died without a second.
“I personally resent being put in this position in trying to alter the statute of limitations and also to set a precedent for other councils that come before us,” Harriette Butler said. She said she doesn’t like other council members or private citizens creating that situation.
She and audience member Deryl von Williams had a brief exchange over the responsibilities of council members, forcing Seifert to gavel the proceedings into silence for a moment.
By coincidence, Williams had signed up to address the council next, and she continued the pleading for Smith.
“If you’re in business and you make a mistake and cheat your customer, when you learn of that mistake, if you are a prudent businessperson, you should do everything in your power to correct that mistake, not look for reasons to keep your customer’s money,” she said.
“If you’re making mistakes, correct them.”
The Rev. C.J. Dale took up the cause. With the exception of Evans, he said, “I’m disappointed in this council.”
“The man’s got a family,” Dale said. “It doesn’t make any sense.”
County Commissioner Eddie Wright also spoke up for Smith. “If I had the money,” he said, “I’d give it to him out of my own pocket.”
Seifert said: “I don’t think there’s anyone on this council who doesn’t have compassion for him.”